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My Health and Fitness Journey, Introduction

Today we start something new in the blog. I ran a poll on Twitter and also asked on a blog post, and you guys were overwhelmingly positive towards a new series of health & fitness posts according to my personal experience. I will initially write these every two weeks in addition to my bookish posts (that I’d already scheduled for most of April anyway when I ran the poll) and then see how it goes and how much time I actually need for them. Might not be sustainable over time to have 4 posts in a week, so we will figure this out together.

I thought of creating these posts because it’s a good way to stay motivated (also being held accountable by the fact that all of you now know about it) and to maybe let other people see that it’s possible to be healthier without being skinny, super restrictive with your diet or a natural-born athlete.

I am not nervous about writing about such a personal thing to me (you guys have been amazing when I opened up about my mental health issues before, for example), but I am a bit wary that this kind of posts will bring a different public to my blog that might be far less kind than the bookish community. But I think these posts might actually make a difference for myself and for others, so I am motivated to write them.

My goals

To learn to love my body. I have disliked my body NO MATTER if I was underweight, with perfectly normal BMI or after my rapid weight gain 2 years ago due to illness & medication. Love for oneself needs to be independent of weight!

To feel confident in what I wear.

To improve and maintain heart health (I have a strong history of heart issues in my family & genetically high cholesterol)

To encourage myself and others to be healthy, whatever that means for each person

To become a runner

To make my body stronger

To improve my immune system by exercising and eating foods that fight illness

I do want to lose weight, too. I will explain this in a separate post.

What I will post

Recipes

My thoughts on certain diets, lifestyle changes

My thoughts on gym and no-gym exercises

My experiences as a runner (a VERY beginner level at this point)

How I manage my expectations, motivation and routine

How I deal with my mental health while trying to be active

My experiences with fitness watches

How I improve my heart health

My obstacles, difficulties and failure

Yo-Yo effect I experienced

Websites, videos and blogs I like

How I started running and why

Running gear & Training gear

Training as a woman (breasts, periods, building muscle…)

My experience with intuitive eating

Books on health & fitness and recipes books

People who inspire me

Etc

I always do a LOT of research before I make any changes in my lifestyle, so you guys will be sure to get lots of reference links, readings and videos. But all the content will reflect my experience personally, and must not be held as a standard for anyone. If you follow a diet I dislike, for example, you do you! We have different bodies, different objectives and different approaches. It’s not my place to tell you what to do (or vice-versa!).

What I will NOT post

Nutrition tips (I’m not a nutritionist!)

Medical tips (also I’m not a doctor)

Training plans

Telling you why YOU should not follow a diet/exercise plan. Not my place.

Calories details. I don’t personally find that counting calories is a good way for me to make sure I am eating well, so my recipes won’t count them. Also, it’s easy to obsess over numbers (for me especially) and forget to enjoy what you eat and do.

Promoting of brands. I may talk about brands I use, but that is not my objective and I will avoid it as much as possible. If curious, you guys can ask me in the comments which brand of watch/shoes/etc I use and I will tell you!

Work-life balance. I can tell you how I do it, but my life is so much easier than other people’s in terms of flexibility, so I think there are better people to talk about this topic! I don’t have children, I work somewhere between 35-45h per week (at the moment)… so clearly I have more time than most people.

That’s it, guys! This is an introductory post, and I have LOTS of ideas of what to talk about.

Ultimately, I am no professional in the health and fitness area, so I will not be telling you how to do things. I aim to inspire more people to be healthy and stay fit, and to motivate myself, too. I would love to hear feedback on what you would like for me to talk about!

I am so excited for this Naty, and I love the goals that you listed for yourself. You are in it for the right reasons and I think that your approach will lead to sustained change for you! If you want to join the bookish running discord server I started, let me know — we are all various levels of healthy but it;s a fun (if not quiet) place to chat.

Selfishly, seeing your posts will also inspire me to get back on track myself. I am rooting for you!

I’m really looking forward to this series. Thank you for being open about your journey and sharing it here! I have many of the same goals as you (especially to improve and maintain heart health), so this is a source of inspiration to me.

Thank you so much, Hannah! I have been considering writing about it for weeks now, but wasn’t sure about the reception it would have… plus I’m not really the best athlete ever. I am so glad to see other people with similar goals!! Heart health is a life-long commitment… we can do it!!

I am looking forward to following you in this journey and can’t wait for the other posts in this series. I need to get healthy and my main goal is to lose weight which in turn I think will help with outer health issues I have but being a double amputee makes it so much harder for me so I tend to lose motivation.

Hi Misty! Being a double amputee and keeping up the motivation to work out etc cannot be easy AT ALL. I think we can exchange recipe ideas, this has been the most efficient way for me to lose weight. Exercise helps but isn’t crucial. And if you want, you & I can try to see what exercises you can do and try those out? I have very low upper body strength, so that would be amazing for me as a challenge 🙂

I can basically only do upper body stuff. I’m not in the position to be able to change my diet at the moment because of other people in the house but I am definitely going to be saving any recipes that you share that I think I will like so I can try them when I’m able.

I wish I was able to change my diet. I would love to eat more healthy but as we are currently living with the in laws they are pretty much set on what they eat and how they cook so I don’t really have a choice right now. I look forward to reading your posts.

Thank you! Yes, relatives (especially older ones) are always difficult to persuade… I’ve been eating partly vegetarian for years now and my grandma got so upset one time when all I ate was rice, because everything else had bacon on it (even the lettuce salad). I could have put the bacon out of things, but the taste makes me sickish… and it sticks to the food. So do what will give you peace and I’ll be rooting for you here 🙂

Beautiful post & beautiful goals !! 💕 I’ve been on my health & fitness journey for a little while now and what I can say is that everything you’ve listed, you will gain all of that plus more !! Health & Fitness is sooo much more than just exercise! It’s a lifestyle and it’s mentally life changing !! ❤️ you’re gonna love it !! Proud of you !! I’m actually another blogger on WordPress who has decided to start sharing my health & Fitness journey too! Good luck with your goals! Sending lots of positive vibes your way !!https://jessierenea.com/self-care-health-fitness-journey/

Good on you for making so huge positive changes! I think that the things you’re leaving out is so so important as well. When I want to watch what I eat I usually also track calories, because that way I can make sure I get enough through meals and not snack (I’m very good at snacking, hah) through the whole day instead. But I have a really weirdly changing apetite, because of GI illness, and really love numbers so I wouldn’t recommend that to most people

Welcome to my blog! I am Naty, a Brazilian Engineer and book blogger writing from Germany. I read various genres and enjoy coffee, chatting about books and attempting to purge my ever-growing to-read pile.